I have spent a most enjoyable weekend at my girls' house, feeding a neighbour's strokable blob of a big coal-black cat, and enjoying the welcome return of Ski Sunday, watching the skiiers scrape down the scary slalom course at Adelboden which drops at a precipitously sharp slope towards its finish. Back here in Acacia Avenue, none of my Muslim neighbours have said anything about events in Paris, but I've made a Je Suis Charlie badge and pinned it to my jacket and feel like shoving it in their mute, shunning, niqabed faces. Oh how I wish I could live in Kirsty's part of Lancaster, where you can feel more liberal and tolerant towards Muslims because you don't have to live with their sense of social boundaries.

---

Around Christmas -- when things can come to a head -- Trina suggested she could rent a room off me in this house in order to have a ready escape from the increasingly stressful situation she finds herself in at her mother's. She has two borderline alcoholic brothers with whom she nominally shares the mothercare, whereas in fact she does the great bulk of it.

She moved in just after Christmas, but it hasn't worked. We went to the Blackpool Soul Weekender, and amidst a generally enjoyable weekend of dancing and chatting, I made the mistake, late one night, when she turned the drug-fuelled conversation to the depressing subject of "our relationship", of saying "Just friends, Trina."

She was rather upset by that. Next morning, she informed me that I am the most cold-hearted person she has ever met. "Excellent, well, let's start Sunday in an upbeat style," I said.

Last night, she came back from her mother's and rang, wondering what I was doing. I was at Kirsty's since I have the girls at the weekend, but they're sixteen now so I can easily get out for a night. I came back to mine and we spent a night round the coal fire, dancing and chatting. Again -- and only because she brought the topic up -- I did say at one point "You'll never be my girlfriend. You're too complicated. I don't like this kind of conversation."

This morning, at 5am, she texted saying that she was moving out. I spoke to her around midday. She told me she'd moved all her possessions onto her narrowboat. She said that she loves me and that she can't be friends with me. "I won't be able to stand it when you meet someone else. I'm going to be heartbroken, so I'm getting out now."

I do feel for her, but am unable to reciprocate her feelings. I've felt that myself, the other way round. But I'm glad she's discovering some self-respect at last. I'm disappointed that my dancing life will be greatly curtailed; and I will miss the financial subsidies, because she paid the lion's share for most of the things we did.

I sent her this email tonight.

Well, that's your two bottles of [name of wine] washed out and put into the recycling. There's the Luther Vandross CD from last night which is on the table in front of me, and countless other reminders of you around. It will be a long time -- if ever -- that you are out of this house.

I understand everything you said this morning. I've been in the same position myself, when there's a lopsided, unequal level of feeling, and I know that in such a situation it is impossible to be friends, however much one wants to try to make it work.

But I will miss you too, and I will only say that you are always --- this goes for my lifetime -- welcome here, welcome to ring, welcome to come round, welcome to go out with me, welcome to turn up unannounced any time in the future. I'm very sorry I can't give you what you would like. That can't change I'm afraid, but you've been a very significant person to me and have made changes for the good in my life that others have noticed. I've had some cracking times with you Trina and I will miss both you and them.

X

I'm not going to reopen the advert for the room just yet though. We've been through such palarvers before.

---

In other news, Morgane, the new lodger, twentysomething postgrad daughter of a woman I had a fling with a few years ago, was sitting opposite me the other night. One blackly be-tighted leg stuck out towards the coal fire and another was tucked under as her cotton dress was riding tautly up her thighs she said "I'm enjoying this arrangement so far." She does give the bathroom floor a thorough wetting every morning but I suppose modern girls, pampered with luxuries like windows that you can open without separating the pane from its frame, expect at least a shower curtain.

At my New Year's Eve party. Erica and Rather Coarse Husband arrived with a generous flourish, opening two bottles of Prosecco and pouring it out for everyone. Italian Looking Woman turned up in an "I am desperate" dress with a wide purple frill tiding down to an isosceles of cleavage. I deliberately didn't look at her tits, because she was dressed in such a way as to tempt men to do exactly that. She poured herself one glass of wine from her bottle, then resealed it and took it with her to the next party. Kitty cut a lonely figure in the kitchen, chomping her way through the bread and cheese.

Once they'd all left, it was me, Trina, a long-standing reader of this blog, and his friend, dancing with a giddy hilarity till the early hours. I like it when a friendship arises from a blog. I'm still waiting for a passionate sexual encounter, but he's got the wrong colour of eyes for me.

Drinking three pints of Yorkshire Porter at 7%, followed by a pint of Katy cider at 7.4% was possibly not the most inspired decision when going on a day out with the extended family, none of whom drink. It's a fine beer though, from North Yorkshire Brewery in Guisborough, and it's organic, which means you can drink a gallon of it and still be charming, intelligent and gentlemanly.

Mum wanted to buy us all Christmas dinner at Wethers in Middlesbrough. The Tightly-Clad Ski Resort Hostesses were there, the daughters of what appears to be my mum's only close friend (but then, how many do you need?) -- seated at a safe distance from any drunken flirting of mine dressed up as an interest in chalet life in Crans-Montana. My mum, to my astonishment, asked to try my porter. She sucked a tiny amount up through a straw and puckered her face with wincing distaste. Then, to compound my surprise, my brother made the same request, but reported more favourably, saying "that's not bad."

I couldn't eat more than a fraction of the food, and went across the road to Boots where, after waiting a while at an unattended till, I went behind it and pinched some carrier bags, and shovelled most of my dinner into one, to be fried up later as bubble and squeak. We went back to my mum's house where everyone's merriment concealed my tipsiness. I hope. My sister had bought a lime green gimp suit in a charity shop, and we both zipped it on. I wondered about its history.

Trina drove us back, saying what a nice family I have. We're poor, we've got to be nice; it's the only currency we've got. There's no-one at my house at the moment, so we put a coal fire in, prepared a nutritious, balanced meal of wine, Bombay mix and amphetamine sulphate, and boogied around to some house music from bookface. We went separately to bed, but she came into my room in the morning. Reader, I fucked her. I wish I could stop doing this. It muddies the waters and gives her hope.

---

As usual I spent Christmas with Kirsty and the girls at theirs. Things started unravelling a bit on Boxing Day, with Melanie's new record player packing up, Fiona's bike having problems with the mudguards and its gears, and Kirsty being iller than I've seen her for many years. I don't like encouraging Boxing Day opening but I went down Sainsbury's and bought another bottle of port on the pretence of fetching her some more Lemsips. I'd managed to drink a bottle a day, so the two that were supposed to get us through Christmas had gone.

The greeting in the Christmas card I sent to Donna descended into filth despite my half-hearted efforts. She texted me saying that she can't display it, but will keep it. I texted back: "Sorry Donna, I'll make them more decent in future. Thank you for sprinkling a sexy bit of stardust over a few weeks in 2014. I cannot put into words how I loved the way you made me feel -- and feeling you was pretty good too! All the best for 2015 XXX"

In the same spirit -- or fortified wine -- I texted Kim. "With the disinhibiting effects of Christmas and a bottle of port... I love you my darling [pet name]. I am very fond of you as sonnead [sic] I wish were nearer, but that regardless I am glad that you are in my life Xxx." She texted a lovely reply.

---

I misunderstood when Morgane wanted to look at the room. She emailed to confirm that she was coming around on Christmas Eve. Fuck. I swept and tidied as much as one can with a sow's ear of a house and creaked the central heating into its first action since everyone moved out last week. She's bright and lively, and shares one of her mother's outstanding characteristics.

In the bathroom, she said "Erm... where do we put things?" That threw me a bit. There's a low chest of drawers and a couple of small shelves, but I suppose women need half an acre of shelf space for their bathroomy paraphernalia. She asked for some "baskets". If any woman reading this might be able to help me out to understand what kind of "basket" you put in a bathroom, or what purpose it might serve, I'd be most grateful.

"I can't be doing with any..." He doesn't have to search long for the completion. "I just want some slag that'll do owt." The people at the accreting table next to me are, I think, bikers. Therefore, despite the vulgar tongue, there will be no aggression.

---

Two birthday parties: the first for someone with whom a night out can feel like a multi-agency social services case conference. I sat for a long twenty minutes with a soda water (no real ale, despite three pumps advertising it), while the birthday girl and another woman preened their nails in a feminised performance of togetherness, and talked to another about her son's shoe size. With as much conversation as there was ale, I thought I would increase the proportion of those to whom she would like to talk by leaving. Handily, I had to collect my daughters to take them to their birthday party.

Frocked and hairbrushed, they walked ahead of me and the rain. Once there, they settled themselves into one of the best pub interiors in Lancaster, a kitsch and sensuous constellation of blue fairy lights and red neon. Their bohemian, female teenage friends arrived at intervals to occupy the other places at their table. I retreated to a remote corner and realised I'd left my computer at home. I walked home to fetch it, before realising that I'd forgotten the cable, so did the journey again.

Kirsty and boyf turned up at the end of their usual weekend together. I assumed that the protocol was for me not to interrupt its tail, so after greeting them I went back to my table, but after a minute or two boyf asked me over. Kirsty had red lipstick on and had had her hair done into an attractive uneven bob; she was wearing a moss green cardi and a flared dark brown leather miniskirt.

I hesitatingly picked at their leftover bread. "No, no, go ahead," said boyf, as they were talking about having gone to some fancy gastropub in Cartmel. Jenny came over and asked them if they could have a pudding, "Of course you can," said boyf. "Have anything you want." I felt inferior.

---

Both the lodgers moved out this weekend. Last night, I didn't know which of my worries were keeping me awake. The sudden lack of their rent, yanking away the fingers they stick in the financial dam, my inability to pay for the train fare up to Middlesbrough on the day after Boxing Day for what will now be the memorial meal for my Dad, finding a way of talking to Seriouscrush about the rent arrears and what will happen to my housing situation, were all contenders.

And then I got an email response to my ad about the rooms from Felicity's daughter Morgane. I've got previous with Felicity. Three or four years ago almost to the day, me, Morgane, and Felicity were sat at their kitchen table wrapping Christmas presents. Then, Morgane went off somewhere, and Felicity dragged me into the spare room and ordered me to fuck her, which act consisted of a soft-dicked half-unclothed frottage which satisfied both parties: she came easily and I was grateful for getting my tea and some sherry, and it was fun being with Morgane at that age when daughters are only half with you, but good company, not needing you.

Morgane's in China at the moment with her brother, but is coming round on Tuesday to look at the hovel. I'd like to share the house with her but I've not got my hopes up; it's the bathroom that puts women off. I've told her to pass on my mobile number to her mum. It'd be nice to wish her happy Christmas.

In the low-ceilinged room, the polka dot lighting skated along the floor and spangled off the foil decorations hanging from the ceiling. The music was irresistibly dancy, the sound quality was like a caress, and the scenery was excellent. The most attractive woman there, someone I've had my eye on for the four years I've been going there, came over to me on the dancefloor, put her hands on my shoulders, and started talking to me.

I'd had a Smartie earlier, one of the ones known for making one excessively openly affectionate. I smiled and slid my hands down the sides of her shiny, tight, blue, knee-length dress, pulling her against me as I kissed her on the cheek. I was in paradise.

Releasing her (but not very far), I noticed her husband watching us from the bar, with the same immobile expression that his face has carried for four years. "It's OK," my Smartied mind thought, "I'm just stroking your gorgeous wife's body through her tightly-fitting dress," with as much concern as if I were talking to her about the air conditioning at a yard's distance.

Later on we had a dance together which went on for several minutes. I was blind to Trina, but she had moved away considerately. When she came back she said, with a lack of rancour as surprising as it was welcome, "I thought I'd leave you alone while K--- chatted you up." I told her that she's married, and noddingly indicated her husband.

On the way out we bumped into a couple who extended a half-hearted invition back to their room in the hotel for a bop, which we didn't take up, I think to our mutual relief. She made a reference to drugs which sounded forced.

Trina started her nocturnal bellowing, so I took all the pillows in the room and a bath towel and went to "sleep" in the bathroom. I tried running the bit of film in which I stroke K---'s waist over and over again, adding a voiceover in which I tell her how gorgeous she is and how much I like watching her dance in that dress; but it's difficult to get turned on when your feet are clanking against a pedal bin.

---

The following night we had sex for the first time in many weeks. Even by our tepid standards it wasn't the greatest of fucks, and my imagination had to work hard to shut out her well-meaning but unspontaneous talking in which she tries to be "dirty". She was trying to please me and make me come, but it had the opposite effect.

Afterwards, I felt ashamed of myself. It was opportunistic and venal. We cuddled for a while, my smiling and kissing as false as her sextalk. She got up to go to sleep in the front room. I spread myself out luxuriantly in the futon, smiling genuinely this time in anticipation of mentally fucking K--, Donna, and whoever else; but I had to correct myself quickly a minute later when she walked back in.

Through a chink in the door, she'd seen the young postgrad Christian lodger sitting topless in the unheated kitchen with a computer and headphones. We both imagined the same thing about what he might be doing. I asked her if he was naked, but she said she'd recoiled at seeing only his bare torso and had hastened back upstairs.

The Christmas mood is upon Lancaster, everyone giving up any pretence; drinking a great deal, even by English standards. Here, it's not being able to pay my rent, and dealing with this by having another pint.

Down the pub I sat at a table I thought was unoccupied, until a large twentysomething man and his Dad came and sat down at it. I vaguely know the father from the railway, and latterly, boozing.

I told them my Dad had died recently in Middlesbrough and he told me about a recent job he did up there. "I got this phone call and he said 'I don't want any fuck ups on this'." "So I said 'No, no, there won't be any fuck ups'." "No but seriously, this is Network Rail you're working for on Saturday." "Network Rail? I haven't worked for Network Rail before. Have you got a contact number for someone?"

"And he said 'What do you mean? Just dial C-U-N-T on your phone and you'll have his fucking number'. And then he slammed the phone down. How the fuck do you respond to that?"

I then got talking to the couple sat behind me, who were an Anglo-Irish couple straight out of Father Ted, arguing bitterly in between buying each other drinks. They reminded me of the kind of resentful co-dependence towards which Trina and I were heading. He told me some useful information about applying for council housing, and how he got housed in a couple of months by "bidding" (that means "expressing an interest in") on an unpopular property. We talked at some length about this, which was of great interest.

My current situation is untenable -- in every sense of that word. I'm fed up interviewing new tenants all the time, in which I have to apologise for the bathroom. I constantly worry about the bills, which I can't meet unless I live like I did when I lived here alone, in which the heating goes on for fewer than ten days a year, and when it gets chilly I sit in a Santa hat, a scarf, and a blanky. I don't like living in a mainly Muslim street, women in niqabs shunning you, and men who use politeness as a distancing technique. I don't like occupying simultaneously the positions of a rentier and a tenant, almost feeling that I have to tug my forelock in gratitude when I see my landlord and landlady; and over us all the time, his unspoken knowledge of the affair I had with his girlfriend, Seriouscrush.

I've got to tell them that I can't pay the rent this month -- or not in full anyway. But I'm also going to tell them that in the medium term, I will be relinquishing my occupancy of 44 Acacia Avenue -- which might be a bargaining position. The rent is good, but the house is a crock: cold, no shower, just one of those bendy tube efforts to wash yourself with, a gappy, cheap MDF kitchen with dirty woodchip wallpaper hanging open from cracks in the plaster; single-glazed windows, one of which I have to tell tenants not to touch, as the glass comes away from the frame if you open it. It'll be a long wait for council housing round here, but in the meantime, it might be a way of negotiating Seriouscrush down a hundred or so.

In the short term though, there's a Scouser coming round to have a look at the hovel in half an hour. I just hope he's desperate enough to enter into another form of co-dependence.